


Just Another Fool (with Makeup on His Face)

by blueorangecrush



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - High School, Getting Together, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-31
Updated: 2017-12-31
Packaged: 2019-02-24 15:11:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13216422
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blueorangecrush/pseuds/blueorangecrush
Summary: Sometimes your way of life chooses you.Tito doesn’t remember ever consciously deciding to be an actor.  Or a dancer.  To hear his parents tell it, they wanted to sign him up to do something because he was an incorrigible small ball of energy, and his big brother Frankie was already playing hockey, and hockey was expensive.  And one of the dance schools near the hockey rink had a “boys get dance lessons for half-price” thing going on, so his parents decided to save some money and stick him in dance class instead.And he took to the dance floor the way Frankie took to the ice.  Maybe even better.





	Just Another Fool (with Makeup on His Face)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anonissue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anonissue/gifts).



> Hey anonissue, thanks so much for requesting these two! They are _just the sweetest_ and I love them so much and had a blast writing this!
> 
> Thanks to L. as always for enabling my nonsense.

Sometimes your way of life chooses you.

Tito doesn’t remember ever consciously deciding to be an actor.  Or a dancer.  To hear his parents tell it, they wanted to sign him up to do _something_ because he was an incorrigible small ball of energy, and his big brother Frankie was already playing hockey, and hockey was expensive.  And one of the dance schools near the hockey rink had a “boys get dance lessons for half-price” thing going on, so his parents decided to save some money and stick him in dance class instead.

And he took to the dance floor the way Frankie took to the ice.  Maybe even better.

That was how it started, and how it kept going.  In the winter, Tito would watch Frankie’s hockey games, and in the late spring and early summer, Frankie would come to Tito’s dance recitals and watch the summer community theater shows that Tito did.  

And then Frankie got chosen for a junior team, one that meant he had to leave, and Tito didn’t have Frankie’s games to watch anymore.  Not live.  He subscribed to the online services and watched them when he got a chance, and he doubled the number of dance classes he took a week, added singing lessons and a fencing class, and tried not to miss his big brother too much.

There were always people around him - at school, at dance, at fencing, at home - but it was still kind of lonely. 

—

Somehow, he got noticed.  Maybe it was at a dance competition.  Maybe it was when he had the lead in a community theater production of _You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown._   But he got asked to audition for a touring performance of _Newsies_ \- and he made it into the tour.

He was almost seventeen.  Technically had a couple years of high school to go but also technically was past compulsory education age, so he didn’t care.  High school would be there when he needed it to be, but this kind of opportunity wouldn’t.

He understood, once he was on tour, why Frankie had left home to play hockey.  Why Frankie _had to_ leave home.  What it was to totally immerse yourself in living and breathing the thing that you’re good at, the thing you’ve worked for harder than most of the people your age would ever even consider working on anything.

It was hard, sometimes, being seventeen and on tour.  Being a minor without actually being a _kid._   Not really having a place with the actual adults or with the younger kids and their parents.

He dealt with that as best he could, by being friendly to everyone.  By helping the younger kids with their homework, so he was still doing something kind of school-related even though he didn’t legally have to so it wasn’t provided for _him._   By being available over text to walk anyone home from a bar who wanted to leave, but didn’t want to walk back alone - he was too young to get _in_ the bar but he could at least meet someone outside, and Shana and Alanna seemed to particularly appreciate that.

He wasn’t sure what he was going to do, after the tour.  Sometimes people asked him, and he would deflect with a soft, “Haven’t decided yet.”

—

Frankie had finished his over-age year in juniors, had been to a couple of different NHL training camps, and had even done a year in the minors, but it had gone poorly enough that he decided he’d better take the college scholarship instead of trying to make a career of hockey.  And he picked a college in New York City, and said Tito could live with him there and keep working on his acting career.  But since he was starting college, he also wanted to make sure Tito finished high school.

Tito was eighteen, legally an adult at least, didn’t need to have any guardianship papers signed or whatever to move in with Frankie, but still needed him for an “emergency contact” and stuff.  He had heard that there were high schools especially for kids working theater, but that didn’t seem to be working out - most of them were for kids who’d been in New York all along, it seemed like, and they didn’t just take random eighteen year olds with weird little holes in their high school transcripts.

The people at the placement office asked if he wanted to just study for a GED, and he told them no, he wanted to go to _high school,_ there had to be something they could work out.  They told him about something they called “transfer schools,” where kids who had fallen behind went to catch up on credits, and he said that would be fine.

That was how he ended up at Brownsville.  That was how he ended up meeting Josh.

—

The first time Tito saw Josh was in math class.  Somehow he knew, somehow _Josh_ knew, that they were very much two of a kind.  Josh was sizing him up with a look that said “either we’re going to be best friends, or we’re going to be rivals who hate each other every step of the way but grudgingly respect each other anyway.”  But all he _said_ was, “Get lunch with me, new kid?”

Tito nodded, gave Josh a thumbs-up.

When they sat down to lunch, Josh asked, “I could be wrong but…what tour was it?”

Tito laughed.  “ _Newsies._ Spot Conlon. How did you know?”

“You move like Broadway, your face looks like it’s more used to makeup than not…and, well, me too.  _In the Heights._ Graffiti Pete.”

Tito smiled so hard it hurt his face.  “I am so happy that you are here.  I was - the only one who was seventeen, not old enough to go out with the grown-ups, too old to want to spend much time with the kids who were more like fourteen, fifteen.  It was a good time, a good…opportunity.  But I was lonely.”

“So, this is the first time you’ve lived _in_ New York, then, right?”

“Yes.”

That was how Josh became Tito’s (and even Frankie’s) personal tour guide.

—

In an amazing stroke of luck, they auditioned for a new production of _Stomp_ and were both cast.

Tito teased Josh a little bit about it - he’d figured out _just_ how much Josh liked to talk by that point, and the parts were non-speaking.  

“I’ll find ways to run my mouth.”

“Oh,” Tito laughed.  “You’re one of those guys who never shuts up backstage, are you?”

“You want me to shut up, do you?” Josh teased.  “Shutting me up is always an option.”  

“Really?” 

Josh looked nervously at him.  “I…kind of like you a lot?  I mean, I _like_ you?”

“Oh.  Shut you up like this?” Tito leaned in to kiss Josh and was immediately, enthusiastically kissed back, like the dramatic kiss for an on-stage wedding but _real._

They broke apart, both saying, “Wow!” at pretty much the same time, then laughing.

“This is gonna be amazing,” Tito said, and squeezed Josh’s hand.

“Gonna be? It already is.”

Tito could only agree, and kiss Josh again.


End file.
